Section 8 Declaration — Template

By Casey Scott McKay · 2026-01-15

A complete model Declaration of Continued Use under Section 8 of the Trademark Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1058, drafted as the instrument it actually is — a sworn statement to the Commissioner for Trademarks, not an agreement between parties — with every variable set out as a bracketed placeholder. The template supplies the caption, the ownership and timeliness recitals, the class-by-class statement of use, the deletion paragraph, the exhibit index describing each specimen, the 37 C.F.R. § 2.20 declaration block with its 18 U.S.C. § 1001 warning, and a compliant S-signature block. Clause-by-clause notes explain what each paragraph does, the rule or statute behind it, and how the wording changes when the facts change. Alternative language covers excusable nonuse, the combined Section 8 and 9 renewal, the Section 71 declaration for Madrid extensions of protection, licensee and related-company use, an intervening change of owner, and a substitute declaration filed to cure a deficiency. Filing mechanics cover the electronic filing requirement, the per-class fee schedule, execution timing inside the statutory window, proof of transmission, and the four dates to calendar the day you file. A closing section collects the mistakes that actually cancel registrations, nearly all of them clerical.

IP and Technology > Trademarks | Form | Published 15 January 2026 - Updated 17 February 2026 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us

Summary. This is a model declaration of continued use — the sworn filing that keeps a federal trademark registration in force at year six and every ten years after. You get the instrument itself with every variable bracketed, drafted in the genre a Section 8 filing actually belongs to; clause-by-clause notes explaining why each paragraph reads the way it does and what authority stands behind it; alternative text for excusable nonuse, combined Section 8 and 9 renewals, Madrid Section 71 declarations, and licensee use; and the filing mechanics — fees, execution timing, proof of transmission, and the dates to docket the day you submit. The last section is the list of ways these filings actually fail, which is duller and more clerical than the case law would suggest.

Keywords: section 8 declaration · declaration of continued use · affidavit of use · 15 u.s.c. 1058 · trademark maintenance · specimen of use · excusable nonuse · section 15 incontestability · section 9 renewal · section 71 declaration · post-registration audit · 37 c.f.r. 2.161 · trademark center filing · deletion of goods · verified statement · grace period surcharge · s-signature · registration cancellation

Template declaration of continued use to keep your registration in force.

Template — not legal advice. Replace every [BRACKETED] field. Marksy is not a law firm; have important filings reviewed by a licensed attorney before signing. This one is sworn: an inaccurate Section 8 declaration is not merely rejected, it is evidence in a later cancellation or fraud proceeding.

What this template is, when to use it, and when not to

A Section 8 declaration is a sworn statement to the Commissioner for Trademarks that a registered mark is still being used in commerce on the goods and services the registration recites. File it and the registration lives. Skip it and the registration is cancelled by operation of law — not suspended, not flagged, cancelled. 15 U.S.C. § 1058(a).

Start with the genre, because getting the genre wrong is the most common drafting error in this area. A Section 8 declaration is not an agreement. There is no counterparty, no consideration, no governing-law clause, and nobody signs opposite you. It is closer to an affidavit filed in a court proceeding than to a contract: one party, one sworn voice, numbered averments of fact, exhibits, and a penalty-of-perjury block. If your draft opens "This Agreement is made as of," you have picked up the wrong template — that shell belongs to the Trademark Assignment Agreement, the Trademark License Agreement, or the Trademark Coexistence Agreement, all of which really do have two sides.

Second point of orientation. Maintenance filings are electronic. 37 C.F.R. § 2.23(a). You will not mail this document anywhere. So what is it for?

It is for the two places sworn prose still has to live inside an electronic filing:

The form fields. The USPTO's post-registration form asks you to identify the goods in use, identify deletions, upload a specimen per class, and sign a verification. The paragraphs below are the text you paste into those fields — written once, correctly, rather than composed at 4:50 p.m. on the last day of the window.
The attached supporting declaration. Where the facts need more than a checkbox — excusable nonuse, use by a licensee, an ownership change that never got recorded, a deletion that needs explaining — you attach a captioned declaration as a PDF and reference it. The same captioned instrument is what you file in response to a proof-of-use audit under 37 C.F.R. § 2.161(b), what you use to cure a deficiency under § 2.164, and what goes in front of the Director on a petition under § 2.165.

Use this template for a Principal or Supplemental Register registration issued under Section 1 or Section 44, at the five-to-six-year rung and at every ten-year rung after. Use it alone, or combined with a Section 15 declaration at year six and with a Section 9 renewal at year ten.

Do not use it when one of these fits better:

| The situation | The right instrument | Why | |---|---|---| | The registration is a § 66(a) extension of protection from a Madrid international registration | Declaration under Section 71, 15 U.S.C. § 1141k; 37 C.F.R. §§ 7.36–7.37 | Section 8 does not reach § 66(a) registrations. The substance is nearly identical — see the alternative clause below and The Madrid Protocol. | | You are at the ten-year rung | Combined Section 8 and Section 9, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1058, 1059 | Two filings, two fees, one form. Filing only the § 8 leaves the registration to expire at the decade mark. | | The mark has been in continuous use five years and you want the extra armor | Section 15 declaration, 15 U.S.C. § 1065 | Different question, different conditions. Usually combined with the first § 8; see Section 15 Incontestability. | | The owner's name changed, or the entity merged or converted | A § 7 amendment or recorded evidence of the change, filed before the declaration | 37 C.F.R. § 2.161(a) requires the owner to file. Fix title first; see the Trademark Assignment Recordal Checklist. | | The mark as used has drifted from the mark as registered | A § 7 amendment if the change is not material, otherwise a new application | A specimen showing a different mark is not a specimen for this one. | | The registration was already cancelled for failure to file | A new application | There is no petition to revive a cancelled registration. See Filing a Section 8 Declaration of Continued Use, Stage 11. | | You are still at the application stage and need to prove use | Statement of use, or an extension request | Different statute, different clock. See Request for Extension of Time to File a Statement of Use and the Statement of Use Filing Checklist. |

The doctrine underneath all of this — the deadline architecture, the deletion decision tree, the audit escalation, and what happens when a window closes — is worked through stage by stage in Filing a Section 8 Declaration of Continued Use, and mapped across the whole maintenance lifecycle in the Trademark Maintenance and Survival Toolkit. This page is the drafting.

Before you start

Six things in hand before you open the template. Every one of them is a fact you will swear to.

The registration record, pulled fresh. Not the certificate scan, not the docket entry — the live record. You need the registration number digit for digit, the registration date (which is what the deadline runs from), the owner exactly as it appears of record, the correspondence address and email, the classes, and the identification of goods and services as it actually reads today, including any amendments. Identifications drift during prosecution; the version in your file memo is often not the version that registered.

The window, calculated twice. From the registration date: the first window opens on the fifth anniversary and closes on the sixth, with grace to six months after. 15 U.S.C. § 1058(a)(1), (a)(3). Each later window opens on the ninth anniversary of the decade and closes on the tenth, grace six months. § 1058(a)(2). Calculate it, then have a second person calculate it. See Trademark Renewal Deadlines Explained and Docketing Deadlines.

A use table, one row per item. Every good and service in the registration, with a yes/no on current use in commerce and, for each yes, the evidence. This is the document that determines the content of paragraphs 5 and 6 below, and it is the document that will save you in an audit. The working sheet is the Trademark Portfolio Inventory — Template; the vocabulary problems that surface while you build it are in Drafting an Identification of Goods and Services and the Goods and Services Identification Checklist.

One specimen per class, in a format the Office accepts. JPG or PDF. For goods: the mark on the goods, their containers, tags, labels, or a display associated with the goods. For services: the mark in the sale or advertising of the services, with a reference to the services themselves. 37 C.F.R. § 2.56. A webpage specimen must include the URL and the date accessed or printed. § 2.56(c). Advertising alone will not carry goods — the Federal Circuit held as much in In re Siny Corp., 920 F.3d 1331, 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2019), where a webpage that displayed the mark and the product but gave no way to order was mere advertising rather than a point-of-sale display. Why the Office rejects specimens, in detail, is in Specimen Refusals.

Trap. A rendering is not a specimen. Mockups, design comps, and — increasingly — AI-generated product images fail because they show what the goods could look like, not what was sold. The USPTO's directed audits look specifically for digitally manipulated specimens, and a fabricated one converts a routine filing into a fraud problem. If your marketing team hands you an image, ask who photographed it and when. Provenance discipline for generated assets is in the Generative AI IP Compliance Checklist.

The signatory, identified by name and title. The verification may be signed by a person with legal authority to bind the owner, a person with firsthand knowledge and actual or implied authority, or an attorney of record. 37 C.F.R. § 2.193(e)(1). Decide who that is before you draft, because paragraph 1 recites their authority.

The fee, confirmed and funded. Per class, and multiplied by classes. The table is in the mechanics section below.

The model document

Two bracket conventions. [ITEMS IN ALL CAPS] are facts to fill in. [Bracketed passages in ordinary sentence case] are optional provisions or alternative language — keep or cut them, guided by the drafting notes that follow. A slash inside a bracket, like [Registrant states / the undersigned states], means choose one.

IN THE UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE COMMISSIONER FOR TRADEMARKS POST REGISTRATION DIVISION

| | | |---|---| | In re U.S. Trademark Registration No. | [REGISTRATION NUMBER] | | Mark: | [MARK AS REGISTERED] | | Registrant: | [REGISTRANT LEGAL NAME] | | Registration Date: | [REGISTRATION DATE] | | International Class(es): | [NN] [, NN] | | Filing Period: | [WINDOW OPEN DATE] to [WINDOW CLOSE DATE] | | Attorney Docket No.: | [DOCKET NUMBER] |

DECLARATION OF CONTINUED USE IN COMMERCE UNDER SECTION 8 OF THE TRADEMARK ACT, 15 U.S.C. § 1058

The undersigned, [SIGNATORY NAME], [TITLE] of [REGISTRANT LEGAL NAME] ("Registrant"), declares as follows:

1. Authority. I am [the [OFFICE] of Registrant and am authorized to execute this declaration on Registrant's behalf / an attorney authorized under 37 C.F.R. § 11.14 to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office and am Registrant's attorney of record in this matter]. I have personal knowledge of the facts stated below, or knowledge of them derived from Registrant's business records maintained in the ordinary course, and I am authorized to make this declaration.

2. Ownership. Registrant is [a [STATE/COUNTRY] [ENTITY TYPE] with a principal place of business at [REGISTRANT ADDRESS] / an individual and a citizen of [COUNTRY] residing at [ADDRESS]], and is the owner of U.S. Trademark Registration No. [REGISTRATION NUMBER] for the mark [MARK AS REGISTERED] (the "Mark"), registered on [REGISTRATION DATE] on the [Principal / Supplemental] Register. [Registrant acquired the Registration from [PREDECESSOR NAME] by [assignment / merger / change of name] effective [DATE], evidence of which is recorded with the Office at Reel [NNNN], Frame [NNNN].]

3. Timeliness. This declaration is submitted within the period prescribed by 15 U.S.C. § 1058(a)[(1) / (2)], which opened on [WINDOW OPEN DATE] and closes on [WINDOW CLOSE DATE]. [This declaration is submitted during the six-month grace period provided by 15 U.S.C. § 1058(a)(3), and the grace-period surcharge is submitted herewith.] This declaration was executed on or after the first day of that period.

4. Continued Use in Commerce. The Mark is in use in commerce, as "use in commerce" is defined in 15 U.S.C. § 1127, on or in connection with the following goods and services recited in the Registration:

International Class [NN]: [LIST EACH GOOD OR SERVICE ON WHICH THE MARK IS IN USE, VERBATIM AS RECITED IN THE REGISTRATION].

International Class [NN]: [LIST EACH GOOD OR SERVICE ON WHICH THE MARK IS IN USE, VERBATIM AS RECITED IN THE REGISTRATION].

Such use has been continuous since [DATE] and is current as of the date of this declaration.

5. Deletions. Registrant requests deletion from the Registration of the following goods and services, on or in connection with which the Mark is not in use in commerce and for which no claim of excusable nonuse is made:

International Class [NN]: [LIST EACH ITEM TO BE DELETED].

[Registrant does not request deletion of any goods or services. The Mark is in use in commerce on all goods and services recited in the Registration.]

6. Nature of Use. [The Mark is used by Registrant directly. / The Mark is used by [LICENSEE NAME], a related company within the meaning of 15 U.S.C. §§ 1055 and 1127, under a written license dated [DATE] under which Registrant controls the nature and quality of the goods and services offered under the Mark. Such use inures to Registrant's benefit.]

7. Specimens. Submitted herewith is at least one specimen for each class, showing the Mark as currently used in commerce:

Exhibit A — International Class [NN]. [DESCRIBE THE SPECIMEN: e.g., photograph of a sewn-in woven label bearing the Mark, affixed to Registrant's [PRODUCT], taken [DATE]].

Exhibit B — International Class [NN]. [DESCRIBE THE SPECIMEN: e.g., printout of Registrant's webpage at [URL], accessed [DATE], displaying the Mark adjacent to the services offered and a means of ordering them].

Each webpage specimen submitted bears the URL of the page and the date on which it was accessed or printed, as required by 37 C.F.R. § 2.56(c).

8. [Optional — Section 15] Incontestability. [Registrant further declares, pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1065 and 37 C.F.R. § 2.167, that the Mark has been in continuous use in commerce for five consecutive years following the date of registration, and is still in use in commerce, on or in connection with the goods and services identified in paragraph 4; that there has been no final decision adverse to Registrant's claim of ownership of the Mark for those goods and services, or to Registrant's right to register the Mark or to keep it on the register; and that there is no proceeding involving those rights pending and not finally disposed of either in the United States Patent and Trademark Office or in a court.]

9. Fee. The fee required by 37 C.F.R. § 2.6 is submitted herewith in the amount of [$AMOUNT], calculated as [NUMBER] class(es) at [$RATE] per class [, plus the grace-period surcharge of [$AMOUNT]]. [The Commissioner is authorized to charge any deficiency, or credit any overpayment, to Deposit Account No. [NUMBER].]

10. Declaration. The undersigned being warned that willful false statements and the like are punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both, under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, and that such willful false statements and the like may jeopardize the validity of this document and the registration to which it pertains, declares that all statements made of the undersigned's own knowledge are true and that all statements made on information and belief are believed to be true.

Executed on [DATE OF EXECUTION — must be on or after [WINDOW OPEN DATE]].

Respectfully submitted,

/[SIGNATORY NAME]/ [SIGNATORY NAME] [TITLE] [REGISTRANT LEGAL NAME] [or: Attorney for Registrant] [FIRM NAME, IF APPLICABLE] [ADDRESS] [EMAIL] · [TELEPHONE]

EXHIBIT INDEX

| Exhibit | Class | Description | Date of specimen | |---|---|---|---| | A | [NN] | [DESCRIPTION] | [DATE] | | B | [NN] | [DESCRIPTION] | [DATE] |

CERTIFICATE OF ELECTRONIC FILING

I certify that this declaration and the accompanying specimens and fee were transmitted electronically to the United States Patent and Trademark Office on [DATE] and that the Office assigned confirmation number [NUMBER].

/[NAME]/

Clause-by-clause drafting notes

The caption. A Trademark Center submission has no caption field, and an unsophisticated filer will conclude the caption is decoration. It is not. The moment this filing goes sideways — an audit, a deficiency letter, a petition to the Director — you need a self-contained PDF that identifies the registration, the mark, the owner, the class, and the window without reference to anything else. Draft the captioned instrument first; harvest the form fields from it second. It also forces you to look up the registration date and the window before you draft anything that depends on them, which is where most errors would otherwise enter.

¶ 1 — Authority. The rule permits three categories of signatory: a person with legal authority to bind the owner, a person with firsthand knowledge and actual or implied authority to act, or an attorney. 37 C.F.R. § 2.193(e)(1). Say which one applies rather than leaving the examiner to guess, and give the signatory's title. The "or knowledge derived from Registrant's business records" clause is deliberate: the CFO of a fifty-product company has not personally seen every label, and a declaration that overstates personal knowledge is worse than one that describes its basis honestly.

¶ 2 — Ownership. The declaration must be filed by the owner. 37 C.F.R. § 2.161(a)(1). If the entity that owns the mark today is not the entity named in the register, the examiner will issue an office action, and you will spend the last weeks of your window recording documents. The bracketed chain-of-title recital exists for the ordinary case where an assignment or merger has been recorded and you simply want the examiner to see the reel and frame without hunting. If it has not been recorded, record it first — see the Trademark Assignment Recordal Checklist and, for the substantive title problems that surface at exactly this moment, Trademarks in the Deal.

¶ 3 — Timeliness. This paragraph does two jobs. It states the window, which forces you to verify it. And it recites that execution occurred on or after the first day of the period, which is a requirement of 37 C.F.R. § 2.161(a)(2) and the single most avoidable fatal defect in maintenance practice. A declaration signed before the window opens attests to facts as of the wrong date. The Federal Circuit made the consequence concrete in In re Holland American Wafer Co., 737 F.2d 1015, 1017 (Fed. Cir. 1984), where renewal papers executed and filed roughly a month early could not be salvaged: the statute "is concerned with use during the renewal period," so the oath had to pertain to that period. A registration issued in 1922 and renewed twice expired over a signature date.

¶ 4 — Continued use. Three drafting rules, all of them mechanical.

First, list the goods verbatim as recited in the registration. Do not modernize the wording, do not consolidate two entries into one, and do not substitute what the company calls the product. The examiner is matching strings.

Second, you may narrow but never expand. Section 8 is a statement about goods already in the registration; adding new goods requires a new application. The scope logic behind the identification is in The Nice Classification System.

Third, "use in commerce" means the statutory definition in 15 U.S.C. § 1127 — bona fide use in the ordinary course of trade, not use made merely to reserve a right. Internal shipments do not count; the Federal Circuit so held in Avakoff v. Southern Pacific Co., 765 F.2d 1097, 1098 (Fed. Cir. 1985), where the shipment ran from the manufacturer to the applicant. Neither does servicing goods you no longer sell, which is the point on which the registrant in In re Bose Corp., 580 F.3d 1240, 1246–47 (Fed. Cir. 2009), lost on the merits even while winning on fraud.

¶ 5 — Deletions. The most valuable paragraph in the document, and the one clients resist. Deleting an item in the declaration itself is free. Deleting the same item after submission and before acceptance costs $250 per class under 37 C.F.R. § 2.161(c). Deleting it after an audit costs that fee plus the professional time of an audit response, and possibly the deficiency surcharge under § 2.164.

Work an example. Marlowe & Fen, Inc., a Providence soap and candle maker, holds Reg. No. [6,102,447] covering Class 3 — "soaps; bath salts; body scrubs; solid perfume" — and Class 4 — "candles; candle wicks; scented wax melts" — registered 14 April 2021. Its first window runs 14 April 2026 to 14 April 2027. The company stopped making solid perfume in 2023 and never actually sold wax melts. Delete both in the declaration and the filing costs $650 for two classes. Carry them and hope, and the Class 3 recitation still has four items — squarely within the random-audit thresholds — and the eventual deletion of two items costs an extra $500 plus the response. The arithmetic is not close.

There is a second reason, less obvious and more serious. An overbroad identification carried through a sworn maintenance filing is an open invitation under the Trademark Modernization Act, which gave third parties ex parte expungement under 15 U.S.C. § 1066a and reexamination under § 1066b, plus a matching cancellation ground at § 1064(6). A competitor can force you to prove use on items you should have deleted, on a written record, without discovery, for the price of a petition. Deletion is the cheapest defensive act in the entire maintenance cycle. See Use It or Lose It and the Trademark Fraud Claim and Self-Audit Checklist.

¶ 6 — Nature of use. Use by a related company inures to the owner's benefit if the owner controls the nature and quality of the goods and services. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1055, 1127. Include this paragraph whenever the specimen shows a name other than the registrant's — a licensee, a distributor, a franchisee, a contract manufacturer whose name appears on the label. Omit it and you invite the examiner to ask who is using the mark.

Do not include it as boilerplate if the license is a handshake. A declaration reciting control that does not exist is a written admission in the naked-licensing case a defendant will eventually bring. See Naked Licensing and the Trademark License Quality Control Checklist.

¶ 7 — Specimens. Describe each specimen rather than merely uploading it. Description costs you two sentences and gives the examiner the reasoning they would otherwise have to supply — that a photograph shows a label affixed to the goods, that a webpage shows a means of ordering. It also builds the record you will need if the specimen is refused and you have to argue about it. A refusal answered from a well-described exhibit index is a short letter; one answered from a bare upload is an investigation. The Response to Office Action — Template picks up from there.

Two mechanical points examiners check every time: the URL and access date on any webpage printout, 37 C.F.R. § 2.56(c), and whether the specimen actually opens. A corrupted or blank PDF is treated as no specimen at all.

¶ 8 — Section 15. Optional, and worth taking when it qualifies. Incontestability forecloses a challenge that the mark is merely descriptive, as the Supreme Court held in Park 'N Fly, Inc. v. Dollar Park & Fly, Inc., 469 U.S. 189, 205 (1985). The conditions are conjunctive and the paragraph tracks them: five consecutive years of post-registration continuous use, no final adverse decision, no pending proceeding. 15 U.S.C. § 1065.

Do not let convenience drag a marginal Section 15 along with a solid Section 8. They ask different questions, and a Section 15 that overstates continuity is an independent exposure. The decision framework is in Section 15 Incontestability.

¶ 9 — Fee. Show the arithmetic. Fee errors are the most common reason a filing that was submitted on time is treated as incomplete, and a filing that arrives with the wrong fee on the last day of the window is a filing that has to be fixed during the grace period, with a surcharge.

¶ 10 — Declaration block. This is the 37 C.F.R. § 2.20 formula, and it should be reproduced substantially as written rather than paraphrased. The 18 U.S.C. § 1001 warning is not ornamental — it is what makes the statement a sworn one, and it is why a Section 8 declaration is the classic fact pattern for a fraud allegation.

Understand the standard before you decide how much to worry. Fraud on the Office requires a knowing, material misrepresentation made with intent to deceive, proved by clear and convincing evidence; the Federal Circuit rejected the Board's "should have known" test in In re Bose Corp., 580 F.3d 1240, 1243, 1245 (Fed. Cir. 2009), overruling Medinol Ltd. v. Neuro Vasx, Inc., 67 U.S.P.Q.2d 1205 (T.T.A.B. 2003). But the exposure is real where the falsity is deliberate: in Torres v. Cantine Torresella S.r.l., 808 F.2d 46, 48 (Fed. Cir. 1986), a registrant who swore his registered mark remained in use on wine, vermouth, and champagne — when he had switched marks and sold only wine — lost the registration, the court holding that fraud in obtaining renewal is fraud in obtaining registration. Full treatment in Fraud on the Trademark Office and Pleading and Proving Trademark Fraud.

The signature. An electronic signature must consist only of letters, numerals, spaces, and permitted punctuation, placed between two forward slashes, and must be personally entered by the signatory. 37 C.F.R. § 2.193(a), (c). Counsel may not sign the client's name, and a signature pasted from a prior filing is not a signature. If the owner is domiciled outside the United States, a qualified U.S. attorney must be of record. 37 C.F.R. § 2.11(a).

Alternative and optional clauses

A. Excusable nonuse — replaces ¶¶ 4 and 7. Section 8 permits a second route: state the goods not in use, show that nonuse is due to special circumstances that excuse it, and state that it is not due to any intention to abandon. 15 U.S.C. § 1058(b)(2); TMEP § 1604.11. The requirements are conjunctive and both are demanding — the nonuse must be temporary and beyond the owner's control. If the client chose it, it is not excusable.

4. Excusable Nonuse. The Mark is not currently in use in commerce on the goods identified in International Class [NN]. Use commenced on [DATE] and was suspended on [DATE]. Nonuse is due to special circumstances beyond Registrant's control and is not due to any intention to abandon the Mark. Specifically: [STATE THE CAUSE WITH DATES AND DOCUMENT REFERENCES]. During the period of nonuse, Registrant has [LIST CONCRETE STEPS TOWARD RESUMPTION, WITH DATES]. Registrant expects to resume use in commerce on or about [DATE].

Bellwether Optics, Inc., of Rochester, is the worked version. Its sole contract manufacturer's plant burned on 3 March 2025; U.S. shipments stopped 11 March; Bellwether signed a replacement manufacturer on 22 August 2025, transferred tooling in October, and expects production in the second quarter of 2027. Its declaration names the fire, the date, the insurance claim number, the replacement agreement, the tooling transfer, and the expected resumption date. Compare the version that gets refused: "The Mark is not in use due to circumstances beyond Registrant's control. Registrant intends to resume use as soon as possible." Same facts, no evidence, and it reads like every abandoned mark's excuse.

Two structural notes. Excusable nonuse may be claimed class by class and item by item, so a partial claim is often the right answer. And a registration maintained on excusable nonuse cannot support a Section 15 declaration, which requires five consecutive years of continuous use. Acceptance also resolves only the Office's inquiry — a third party may still petition to cancel for abandonment under 15 U.S.C. § 1064, where three consecutive years of nonuse is prima facie abandonment under § 1127 and the registrant must show intent to resume within the reasonably foreseeable future, Imperial Tobacco Ltd. v. Philip Morris, Inc., 899 F.2d 1575, 1581 (Fed. Cir. 1990). See Proving and Defeating Trademark Abandonment and the Trademark Abandonment Evidence Checklist.

B. Combined Section 8 and Section 9 — add after ¶ 8. At every ten-year rung, retitle the instrument "Declaration of Continued Use Under Section 8 and Application for Renewal Under Section 9" and add:

8A. Renewal. Registrant requests renewal of the Registration for a further ten-year term pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 1059 and 37 C.F.R. § 2.183, for the goods and services identified in paragraph 4, and submits the renewal fee herewith.

C. Section 71 for a Madrid extension of protection — replaces the title and ¶ 3. For a registration issued from a § 66(a) request for extension of protection, the maintenance statute is 15 U.S.C. § 1141k, not § 1058, and the rules are 37 C.F.R. §§ 7.36–7.37. Retitle accordingly and recite § 1141k in ¶ 3. Note the split that catches people: the U.S. Section 71 clock runs from the date of the U.S. registration certificate, while renewal of the underlying international registration happens at WIPO on the IR's own ten-year cycle. Two deadlines, two offices, and neither reminds the other. See the International Trademark Toolkit.

D. Change of owner not yet reflected — expanded ¶ 2. Where the assignment is being recorded contemporaneously:

Registrant acquired all right, title, and interest in the Mark and the Registration, together with the goodwill of the business symbolized thereby, from [PREDECESSOR] by written assignment dated [DATE], submitted for recordation concurrently herewith. The Office is respectfully requested to update the ownership record accordingly.

E. Substitute declaration to cure a deficiency — replaces ¶ 3. Where the original declaration was timely but defective:

3. Substitute Declaration. This declaration is submitted under 37 C.F.R. § 2.164 to correct the deficiency identified in the Office action of [DATE] in the declaration filed [DATE]. It is executed on or after the first day of the filing period that opened [DATE]. [The deficiency surcharge required by 37 C.F.R. § 2.6 is submitted herewith.]

F. Posture, conservative versus expansive. There is no aggressive version of a sworn statement, but there is a real strategic choice about breadth. The conservative posture deletes every item that cannot be documented today, keeps the identification tight, and accepts a narrower registration in exchange for an unimpeachable one — the right default for any registration that will be enforced, licensed, or sold. The expansive posture retains items the client genuinely sells but for which the specimen file is thin, on the theory that scope has value and audits are probabilistic. That is defensible only where the underlying use is real and provable on request. It is never defensible for items nobody sells. If you cannot say to the client, "we can prove this within thirty days if the Office asks," delete it.

Filing mechanics

Where it goes. Electronically, through the USPTO's trademark filing system — Trademark Center, which has replaced the legacy TEAS forms. 37 C.F.R. § 2.23(a). Paper is available only by petition to the Director under 37 C.F.R. § 2.147, on a showing that electronic filing was not possible, with a fee. Do not plan around it.

Fees, per class, electronic filing, under the fee schedule in effect since January 2025. 37 C.F.R. § 2.6.

| Filing | Fee | |---|---| | Section 8 declaration | $325 per class | | Section 8 grace-period surcharge | $100 per class | | Section 9 renewal | $325 per class | | Section 9 grace-period surcharge | $100 per class | | Section 15 declaration | $250 per class | | Section 71 declaration | $325 per class | | Deficiency surcharge, 37 C.F.R. § 2.164 | $100 | | Deleting goods, services, or classes after submission and before acceptance, § 2.161(c) | $250 per class |

Verify the current schedule the week you file. Fees move.

Execution timing. Sign on or after the first day of the window and file within days of signing. 37 C.F.R. § 2.161(a)(2). And file early in the window rather than late — not for comfort, but for arithmetic. A deficiency corrected before the statutory filing period ends is free; the same correction after it costs the surcharge. § 2.164(a). Filing in month one converts most office actions into free corrections. Filing in month twelve converts them into paid ones and leaves no room to file a clean replacement declaration if something goes badly wrong.

Proof of transmission. Download the filing receipt and the complete submission package to the matter file the same day. Then, two or three business days later, reopen the registration in the public record and confirm the filing appears in the prosecution history with the expected status. Receipts have been wrong. The register is the record.

What comes back. Either a notice of acceptance, or an office action identifying a deficiency. You get six months to respond, or until the end of the Section 8 filing period, whichever is later. 37 C.F.R. § 2.163(b). If the refusal is maintained, the route is a petition to the Director under § 2.165 — there is no ex parte appeal to the TTAB from a post-registration refusal — and the Director's decision is a prerequisite to any court action. § 2.165(c).

Calendar four dates the moment you file. (1) The expected acceptance date, as a follow-up trigger. (2) The end of the current statutory filing period, because that date governs whether a cure is free. (3) The end of the grace period. (4) The next rung — the combined Section 8 and 9 window a decade out, entered as window-open, window-close, and grace-expiry, with escalating reminders and a named human backup. Docket them the day you file, while the file is open. The system for doing this at portfolio scale is in the Trademark Portfolio Management Toolkit and the Annual Trademark Portfolio Review Checklist.

Practice tip. Start a specimen folder the same day. One dated folder per year, one image per product line, one representative invoice, fifteen minutes a quarter. It turns the next Section 8 from an investigation into a retrieval — and it is the same evidence file that supports a CBP recordation, a marketplace brand-registry enrollment, or the first declaration in an enforcement action. See the Anticounterfeiting Program Checklist.

Common mistakes

Filing an agreement instead of a declaration. Covered above, and it is not hypothetical — generic contract shells circulate with "Section 8" typed into the title. One party, sworn averments, exhibits, penalty-of-perjury block. No governing-law clause.

Executing before the window opens. Fatal in Holland American Wafer, correctable today only if the substitute lands inside the statutory period. Check the execution date twice.

Filing in the name of the wrong entity. The company reorganized, the founder assigned the mark to the LLC, the parent absorbed the subsidiary — and nobody recorded it. Fix title before you file, not in response to the office action.

Keeping goods nobody sells. Free to delete now. $250 per class after submission. Potentially the whole registration after a failed audit, where an inability to prove use on the two sampled items escalates to a demand for proof on everything remaining in the class.

Uploading a mockup, a logo file, or an advertisement. A specimen shows the mark as encountered by purchasers at the point of sale, not as designed. Siny is the modern line for goods sold online.

Forgetting the URL and access date on a webpage printout. 37 C.F.R. § 2.56(c). A one-second omission and a three-week office action.

Filing only the Section 8 at the ten-year rung. The registration expires anyway, for want of the Section 9 renewal.

Treating the courtesy reminder as the docket. The Office may send one; nonreceipt excuses nothing. 15 U.S.C. § 1058(f).

Renewing a registration nobody should keep. Maintenance season is the right time to prune deliberately. A two-class registration for a retired sub-brand costs $650 now and $650 a decade from now for a right nobody enforces. Genericide risk, enforcement value, and portfolio fit all belong in that conversation — see Genericide and Building and Managing a Trademark Portfolio.

One closing contrast worth keeping in mind, because clients confuse the two systems constantly: copyright has no maintenance filing. A federal copyright registration never needs renewing, and the deposit that supported it is not a specimen of anything. The obligations that do attach on the copyright side are set out in the Copyright Fundamentals Toolkit and the Copyright Registration Checklist. Trademarks are the ones that die of neglect.